Nomura Kichisaburō

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After being appointed Foreign Minister, September 1939
With special envoy Kurusu, November 1941

Nomura Kichisaburō ( Japanese 野村 吉三郎 ; * December 16, 1877 ; † May 8, 1964 ) was an admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and ambassador of Japan in the United States until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor .

Life

Nomura graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in the 26th year and then served on a wide variety of ships in the Navy, such as the Kongō , the Hiei , or the Chitose . Between 1916 and 1918 he was a naval attaché in the United States. Until 1921 he held various offices in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Among other things, he drove on the cruiser Yakumo as a senior officer, which was also his last assignment on a ship. During this time he also took part in the Washington Naval Conference, which had been arranged by the administration under US President Warren G. Harding in November 1921.

From June 1, 1922, Nomura joined the Japanese Navy General Staff. Nomura was Deputy Chief of Staff from July 26, 1926 to December 10, 1928. Shortly after taking office, the naval leadership promoted him to Rear Admiral on December 1, 1926.

On December 1, 1931, he took up the post of chief of staff in the Yokosuka Marine District , which he held until February 2, 1932. At that time he was a vice admiral.

He lost his right eye in a bomb attack on Nomura and other high-ranking military personnel in a victory parade after the Battle of Shanghai in 1932 by the Korean independence fighter Yoong Bong-gil.

From 1933 to 1937 Nomura was a member of the Japanese Supreme War Council ( 軍事 参議院 , Gunji sangiin , also: gunji sangikan kaigi ). In 1937 he ended his active naval service.

Two years later, Nomura Kichisaburō became foreign minister and held this office until 1940. In March 1941, he took up the post of Japanese ambassador to the USA. During the year he conferred several times with the American Secretary of State Cordell Hull in order to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict that flared up in the Pacific region. Even at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he sat with the diplomat Kurusu Saburō again to negotiate with Cordell Hull. Since the technical staff was not present at the embassy on Sundays, the two had to personally decode the note sent to the USA, which broke off negotiations and, under these circumstances, practically amounted to a declaration of war , and then handed it over to the Americans. This explains the delay until after the attack is complete.

Nomura Kichisaburō held the office of special envoy in the USA from July to December 1942 . In May 1945 he was appointed to the Japanese State Council.

After the war he worked intermittently as president of JVC . In 1954 he was elected to the House of Lords , to which he belonged until the end of his life. After the reorganization of the Japanese armed forces in the 1950s, he received several offers to become head of the defense authority , but refused each time.

Individual evidence

  1. Nihon Kaigun - Naval General Staff of the IJN under: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nihonkaigun.modellmarine.de
  2. Nihon Kaigun - Yokosuka Marine District under: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nihonkaigun.modellmarine.de
  3. Chŏng-sik Lee: The Politics of Korean Nationalism. 1963, p. 185.

literature

  • Chŏng-sik Lee: The Politics of Korean Nationalism. University of California Press, Berkeley, California 1963, OCLC 412823 .
  • Peter Mauch: New Evidence from Japan: The Emperor and Nomura Kichisaburō, October 1949. In: Diplomacy & Statecraft. Volume 17, Number 2, pp. 415-422. Routledge, 2006, ISSN  0959-2296 , OCLC 792692001 .
  • Peter Mauch: Sailor Diplomat. Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2001, ISBN 978-0-674-05599-5 , OCLC 656772289 .
  • Hisashi Oshio: Chubei Taishi Nomura Kichisaburo no munen: Nichi-Bei kaisen o kaihi dekinakatta otokotachi. Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, London 1994, ISBN 978-4-532-16147-7 , OCLC 32552234 .

Web links

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